


Teach You a Lesson

by theLiterator



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, First Times, M/M, tumblr: winterhawk week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2344667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time the Winter Soldier meets Hawkeye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teach You a Lesson

[ _August, 1996_ ]

The first time the Soldier met that other sniper, the one who never missed, the one who should have been the Enemy, but wasn’t, he looked him in the eyes and saw only death, no pain, and the Soldier smiled and tugged him close and pressed his lips in hard and thought _I will teach you pain_.

***

[ _May, 1999_ ]

The first time the Soldier met the boy who called himself Hawkeye, they were on a rooftop in Algiers, with the same target and the same goal, and the Soldier merely cast his opponent, his _comrade_ , a jaunty salute in the American fashion and started unpacking his rifle; Hawkeye hesitated before following his lead, and when they hunkered down flat on their bellies, they were pressed together shoulder to thigh, like one sniper, and the Soldier thought how _warm_ it all was, and when their target fell in a rain of blood and brains and the crowd’s complete indifference, he turned to face Hawkeye, and he was smiling with the pleasure of a satisfactory mission outcome, so the Soldier touched him and his burning warmth and pressed a careful kiss to his mouth, and ignored whatever Clint said in response, because whatever words he might say had no bearing on the rest; on the way Hawkeye carefully flipped him to his back, on the smell of metal and rifling and the hot Algerian sun. On Hawkeye’s hands and eyes and mouth.  


***

[ _June, 2000_ ]

The first time they meet is in Somalia, and the world is blood and anger and fire and death, and the Soldier was born for this. He knows who is meant to live, to lead, and he has backup: quiet and professional and terrified of him, except the one they call Hawkeye who carries a bow and smirks at authority and who moves like he knows what the Soldier is going to do next, and who is right when he guesses that.

They are covered in blood and ash and Hawkeye grabs him by the back of his neck and his good shoulder and hauls him in to bite at his lower lip. “I’m sorry,” Hawkeye says and he does it again and then licks at the hurt, and everything is hot and breathless.

Afterwards, they don’t separate, even when the handlers come in for the debriefing, and Hawkeye’s handler stares at them sadly and doesn’t rebuke him.

No one ever tells the Soldier he’s done wrong, but he can sense it anyway, in the regard of Hawkeye’s handler and his pain-filled eyes.

***

[ _March, 2002_ ]

Angola is empty and whispering and cold and familiar like ice, and so when he meets Hawkeye’s gaze and that is familiar too, he tries to shut it out. He has never met this sniper before, and doesn’t care to again, but Hawkeye doesn’t let him hide.

“I wish you could remember,” someone whispers in his ear, and the Angolan people are rotting in village centers the way they have for years and years and years and he whispers back “I do,” and it echoes through the world around him and it echoes in his blood and in the whine of his mechanical arm.

He knows the face that he frames in his crosshairs, he remembers a young boy laughing and calling him Winter, and he fires anyway.

Hawkeye shakes his head and they watch as _those commie bastards_ crumble apart the way they deserved to.

***

[ _September, 2004_ ]

The first time he meets Agent Barton, he is walking through the corridors with his escort of ten, and he stops short at the sight of a man in a rumpled flightsuit, and his escort tenses, barely breathing.

“Hey there,” the man says, smiling a smile that is full of agony, and the Soldier knows he could raze empires if it would tear the pain from that stranger’s smile, “Agent Barton. You do good work, Soldier,” he says. The Soldier does not need praise, but this makes something inside him preen, and he smiles back at Agent Barton. The escort draws their weapons.

“You too,” he says, and his own voice startles him. Agent Barton’s smile closes off, but before it is gone completely, he drops a warm hand to the Soldier’s good shoulder, and the heat of it makes him straighten his spine, so that when he moves on, he no longer walks like a dead man.

***

The first time…

***

[ _December, 1994_ ]

This wasn’t Clint’s first wetworks gig, but it was probably his most prestigious to date, even if he’s got six other guys with him, and Chechnya is a fucking shithole that makes him wonder if the headlines aren’t lying when they talk about the Cold War being over.

He’s too new at this to know to be afraid of the man with the metal arm, and he’s too unknown to go by anything but his given name, so he grins at the man in the bar and says “Hey, the name’s Clint,” with terribly-accented Russian, and the man gives him a once-over that has the whole bar going quiet in anticipation. That’s about when Clint realizes he’s probably just stepped in it pretty damned thoroughly, but he’s never known when to run away—that was always Barney’s gig—so he just smiles his prettiest smile and offers the man his hand. “I think usually your name is next.”

“I am Winter,” the man says, and Clint likes that, translates it back into Russian in his head so he doesn’t accidentally call him the season and not his name in the throes of epic fucking he’s about ready to get in to. “You come with me,” he adds, and Clint nods like the eager puppy he is and lets Winter draw him away (maybe he will just call him Winter. His Russian’s too spotty to say it right anyway.)

Winter fucks him like he’s trying to prove something, and Clint lets him because he’s been aching for a connection for days and none of the other mercs want anything to do with him either because he’s here for murder or because he’s so young.

“So,” Clint says, when he pulls away. “I’ll see you around?” Winter looks at him with a lost, innocent expression that makes him want… things he’d promised himself he’d never want.

“Around?” Winter asks, perfectly round vowels, no trace of the Russian, but it’s only one word, he’s probably mistaken. “Where though, Clint? Where am I?”

And that freaks him out so he gets out fast, and he might listen eagerly every time the Winter Soldier is mentioned after that, but he never tells his own story, at first because no one will ever believe it, and then, later, because it hurts too much, deep-deep down, and he’s not actually a masochist, no matter what Coulson says every time he comes home from a mission where he works with SHIELD’s most classified asset.


End file.
